Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants, once dreamed of justice on the streets of Oakland. Barack Obama, born to a Kenyan father and a Kansas mother, found his voice on Chicago's South Side. Against the odds, both rose from the margins to the Senate, ultimately shattering ceilings in the White House. But with the 2024 election looming, Harris stands on th ... Show More
Nov 2024
42 | Outsiders On The Inside | It’s the Senate, and We in It
It's 1978, and Senator Edward Brooke is fighting for his political life. As the first Black U.S. Senator elected by popular vote, Ed broke barriers and reached the heights of power. But scandal and betrayal threaten to bring it all crashing down. Meanwhile, a young Carol Moseley ... Show More
45m 26s
Nov 2024
41 | Lord Give Me a Sign | It’s the Senate, and We in It
The Civil War’s over, countless Black people are making their way in a new and dangerous world, and their fight for equality and representation ain’t over. Two Black men – preacher Hiram Revels and the formerly enslaved Blanche Bruce – rise up during U.S. Reconstruction with diff ... Show More
38m 53s
Nov 2024
41 | Lord Give Me a Sign | It’s the Senate, and We in It
The Civil War’s over, countless Black people are making their way in a new and dangerous world, and their fight for equality and representation ain’t over. Two Black men – preacher Hiram Revels and the formerly enslaved Blanche Bruce – rise up during U.S. Reconstruction with diff ... Show More
38m 53s
Sep 2025
601. Scandal in the White House
Who was Grover Cleveland, and why is he one of the most controversial American Presidents of all time? Why was the run up to his first term, in 1884 at the height of the Gilded Age, so pivotal to American politics? How did he rocket to the heights of political power? What dark se ... Show More
1h 11m
Jun 2021
Juneteenth and the Constitution
On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had been issued over two years earlier, and the South had ... Show More
57m 15s
Nov 2024
Herbert Hoover gave us Woody Guthrie (with David Cunningham)
Welcome to the final episode of What Just Happened, a Recall This Book experiment. In it you will hear three friends of RTB reacting to the 2024 election and discussing the coming four years. David Cunningham, chair of Sociology at Washington University in St Louis, is author of ... Show More
24m 27s
Mar 2021
TEASER: Jelani Cobb: Jan. 6 Was the Beginning of GOP’s Mess, Not Ending
It’s not hard to see that the Republican party was the Party of Trump during the four years he was president. But what kind of party are they now? Honestly, it’s hard to tell. “When you looked at the platform for the 2020 election, they didn't create one,” says New Yorker writer ... Show More
6m 15s